Thursday, 12 January 2017

SUPREME COURT JUDGE WITHDRAWS FROM OKEZIE IKPEAZU'S CASE

Justice
Amina Augie, of the Supreme Court, yesterday, withdrew as a member of the panel
set up to hear the appeal case on the Abia State governorship election.

The
development forced an indefinite adjournment of the case pending when the
Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen would replaced
her on the panel with another Justice.

Justice
Augie’s decision was based on allegations of bias levelled against her by one
of the parties in the matter.

She said
she could no longer sit on the panel hearing the appeal numbers 10 and 11 filed
by Samson Ogah as well as the one by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on the
ground that there was a sentiment expressed by one of the parties in a previous
sister case.

Augie
disclosed that a party had accused her of influencing the constitution of a
four-member panel of Justices of the Court of Appeal that heard the petition
challenging the election of Okezie Ikpeazu as governor of Abia State in Owerri,
the Imo State capital, where she was the Presiding Justice of the Appeal Court
division.

On that
note, the five-man panel of justices of the Supreme Court hearing the appeals
adjourned the matter to a date that will be communicated to all the parties in
the matter.

Justice
Bode Rhodes Vivour, who presided over the panel, said “once a Judge is accused
of bias in any case, the ideal thing to do is to withdraw from the suit.”

He said a
new panel would be reconstituted to hear the appeals and he would contact the
acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen to get a date
that would not be too far, so as to dispense with the appeal as soon as
possible.

Earlier,
the court had struck out the application dated December 30, 2016, filed by
Friday Nwosu, through his counsel, A. C Ozioko, on the ground that the,
“application appeared to be partially overtaken by event”.

The said
application prayed the court to hear and determine the appeal based on the
appellant’s brief only.

The Court
of Appeal in Abuja had, in August last year, set aside the judgment by Justice
Okon Abang of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which sacked Governor Ikpeazu of
Abia State from office over alleged false tax information.

The court,
in a unanimous decision vacated the June 27, 2016 verdict of Justice
Abang and held that the court erred in law and occasioned a miscarriage of
justice against Ikpeazu.

In a
related development, hearing of the election petition filed by the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu,
challenging the victory of Mr. Godwin Obaseki at the September 28, 2016, Edo
governorship polls was also stalled, yesterday, following disagreement by
Counsel to the parties on tendering documents at the election tribunal.

At the
commencement of hearing of the petition, Counsel to the petitioners, Mallam
Yusuf Alli (SAN), leading other lawyers, told the tribunal he would start his
case by tendering the non-contentious certified electoral documents common to
all the parties in the petition, adding that some of the documents, Form EC8 E
would be tendered in batches, according to polling units.

His
opening remarks was objected to by counsel to the respondents, who disagreed on
the mode of tendering the documents, insisting that they had no knowledge of
the documents. This forced the tribunal to adjourn for over one hour to enable
the parties sort the documents and reach agreement.

When the
tribunal resumed, the petitioners’ Counsel, Yusuf Alli (SAN) tendered Forms EC8
E, EC8 D, and at the point of tendering Forms EC8 C (results for 17 local
government areas), respondents’ counsel objected, insisting they only examined
the result for Akoko-Edo and were yet to examine those for the seven other
local governments.

Although
the tribunal ruled that the documents be examined by respondents’ counsel
before tendering them, much progress was not made in the hearing, forcing INEC
lead Counsel, Hassan Liman (SAN) to propose that petitioners and respondents’
counsel should liaise with the tribunals’ Registrar to sort out the documents
before full trial should commence.

Consequently,
the Chairman of the tribunal, Ahmed Badamasi ruled that the parties should meet
with the Tribunal Registrar to sort out the documents and, then, adjourned
hearing on the petition to Monday January16, 2016.